


good comforts

by pigeonsarecool



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Genre: F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5883448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonsarecool/pseuds/pigeonsarecool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the other side of the curtain, another world away, the Lord Bassanio drones on for what seems like hours, and Portia asks, abruptly, “Would you rather be hanged or wived?”</p><p>“Hanged, lady,” says Nerissa darkly, and Portia throws back her head, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	good comforts

 

 

“I pray thee, o’ername them,” says Portia, giddy like a child, and Nerissa does, because she loves this game: they’ve played it many times before, as children and as women, and now it is no longer a game, but still they play it, and Nerissa clings to it, takes a selfish pleasure in hearing Portia say: _I will have none of them_. 

(She must have _one_ of them.)

 

 

 

Hanging and wiving go by destiny, Nerissa’s mother used to say, and her grandmother before her, and she will say it to her daughters, every day until the time comes that she can no longer hide them from their fate. _Hanging and wiving go by destiny_ , she tells Portia, in the meantime, and Portia only says, “Draw the curtain.”

They are on their eleventh suitor. Over and over again, Portia takes them down the wrong path: entices them with gold, with silver, with wine and song, and when the time has come they will choose the death’s-head, or the scroll, and Portia will be safe again. When they are sent away, she turns her back, and welcomes the next, measuring the tricks of his speech and the gleam in his eyes, and when the time has come he will go to bed alone. When the time comes, thinks Nerissa, she will see something that pleases her, and the game will be over.

 

 

 

There’s a new suitor today, arrived suddenly and without warning: his name is Hamlet, and he is the crown prince of Denmark. Rumors spread among the servants; Nerissa repeats them all, tells Portia he’s mad, he’s blasphemous, he’s cruel, he’s cowardly, he murdered his own father, he had his father murdered and told no one, his father was murdered and he was shunned for a place at the throne—whatever the case, Portia replies, he looks like a girl, and speaks like one too—which is to say, not at all.

“A good thing in a husband, lady,” murmurs Nerissa, and Portia swats at her playfully. “Come, Nerissa. You don’t mean to say you’d take the boy Hamlet for your lord? You are welcome to him, truly.”

“I’d rather the Prince of Arragon,” Nerissa retorts, and turns away—but there’s something about Hamlet, something about his face, his figure, his demeanor, that appeals to her greatly, and she can’t quite decide what it is—only that it is wrong, and that Portia need not know of it.

 

 

 

Hanging and wiving go by destiny, Nerissa’s mother used to say, and her grandmother before her, and when she first said it to Portia, years ago, the young lady of Belmont only laughed. “Destiny is a clumsy thing,” she told Nerissa. “Do what you can.”

It is in the spirit of the Lady Portia, then, that she corners Hamlet in the garden that night and asks for his hand in marriage.

“’Tis not the custom for a woman to wed a man,” he says, when he’s managed to stop gaping like a fish for long enough to answer, “Or, rather, in my country—it is done the other way around.”

“’Tis the custom for a woman to wed a woman, then?” she says, quick to answer, then—slow and lazy and matter-of-fact, borrowing from Portia: the slight lean forward, eyes meeting his squarely. Lord, she thinks, Lord have mercy on my soul if I am wrong—

“No, not that either,” replies Hamlet, smiling slightly, and Nerissa knows she’s won. 

“Then,” she says, sidling closer—oh, if Portia were to see this!—“Why has a woman come to ask the hand of my lady?”

_There_. She almost feels pity for him.

“There’s no use in lying, my lord,” she tells him, quiet, close enough now to feel the warmth of his skin. “Who are you, truly?”

He looks at her, and she wonders how Portia could ever have been fooled: soft lips, gentle eyes, long lashes—body small and lithe as a child’s, curves just barely visible beneath the cloth of the doublet. Nerissa feels a thrill in the pit of her stomach that has nothing to do with nerves.

“Ophelia,” he says, “The daughter of a court adviser of Denmark,” and Nerissa resists the urge to laugh. The idle rich, she thinks, must christen their children solely out of boredom—but when she repeats it, under her breath, her tongue is clumsy over the syllables—like learning to read, or praying to a pagan god—“Do not ask for the hand of my lady,” she says, dumbly, just to get the words out, and Ophelia raises an eyebrow. “Your lady?”

Nerissa feels herself blush, hearing the insinuation. “The good lady of Belmont, I mean. She needs a husband, not a wife.” 

“She has no wife?” 

“No wife,” Nerissa confirms, and then, shameless: “Neither do I.”

 

 

 

It’s late when she returns to Portia’s chambers. Portia looks at her—a little strangely, perhaps—but says nothing; Nerissa combs the curls from her hair, a series of soothing, rhythmic motions as familiar to both of them as breathing, and says, “The Lord Hamlet sends you his regards.”

Portia’s mouth twitches. “Hamlet? Is that where you were all evening?”

“That would be none of your concern, my lady,” says Nerissa stiffly, and Portia laughs, delighted. “A prince for your husband, Nerissa!”

“He is not my husband, my lady.” The comb had been stolen from pirates overseas, or so Portia’s story goes; it had been her mother’s before her, and, Nerissa suspects, her grandmother’s before _her_. Nerissa uses it every night, on her mistress’ hair and then her own, with permission. This, she thinks, fingering the teeth of it, the fine inscriptions, the jewels, is what the women of Portia’s line leave to their daughters, so much lovelier than Nerissa’s own inheritance: bad advice, dreary tales, empty pockets. A gift of nothing, less than nothing, and sent on her way.

Portia turns to face her, hair half-down, eyes bright. “Nerissa, you know—you know I would not mind.”

Nerissa frowns, motions for her to face forward again. She hasn’t discussed the matter with Ophelia, not really; their time together had not been spent with conversation so much as—well, other things.

Now that Portia mentions it, though—the thought of it, that it might be _entirely possible_ , that tonight’s talk in the garden could have been so much more than jest—that she could _marry_ Ophelia, take her as her _husband_ , and no one would be any the wiser. Portia would find out eventually, she supposes, simply by virtue of being _Portia_ , and making it her business to know everything of everything—but by then they would be wed already, and Portia has had her faults but she isn’t _cruel_ , exactly, not to Nerissa, and—well, she would provide for them, wouldn’t she? They would be safe—

She shakes herself. It’s a foolish thought, and a sad thing for a lady, to live the rest of her days in the name and image of a dead man. 

“I know you would not mind, lady,” Nerissa tells her, pushing the comb through her hair, again, gentler this time than the last. “I only think—he is not for me.”

“Maids have married princes,” says Portia, dubious, but she lets the matter drop, and the rest of the night passes in silence.

 

 

 

The Lord Hamlet is invited to stay as a guest, for as long as he likes—Nerissa suspects Portia of playing matchmaker, which is not in her nature but wholly in the realm of possibility, given recent events—but Nerissa does not see her again. Portia has suitors flocking through the gates at every hour, drawn by the delicious prospect of gold (Hamlet, true to her word, is not among them)—and at every hour Nerissa stands guard, watching them come, and, to her great relief, no matter how many times they repeat their dance, watching them go.

She takes great pains to avoid Ophelia, anticipates her daily paths and does not cross them, dropping her eyes politely when she does; she can feel Portia watching her, watching _them_ , Portia of the sharp eyes and the eager curiosity no one had thought to rid her of as a child, Portia who is never wrong, about anything, be it men, or books, or silks, or politics, or Bible verses, or love— _never_ —

(The good thing about the incident in the garden, she reflects, much later, is that there was no longer any doubt. Nerissa does not want a husband because she wants a wife, and it seems as though it should have been obvious from the beginning.

Portia wants no part in a husband, either, says a small voice in the back of her mind, _but:_

“I pray thee, o’ername them,” says Portia, only a week after, and Nerissa says, “The Lord Bassanio,” barely jesting, hardly _knowing_ , like throwing a toy, or a ball of yarn in sport, and Portia—drops it.)

 

 

 

On the other side of the curtain, another world away, the Lord Bassanio drones on for what seems like hours, and Portia asks, abruptly, “Would you rather be hanged or wived?”

“Hanged, lady,” says Nerissa darkly, and Portia throws back her head, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

 

 

 

Gratiano is large and bearded and rank, ugly and crass and damp with sweat even in cool breeze. He grabs her from behind, cries out triumphantly—and Nerissa twists away, thinking _Portia_ thinking _Ophelia_ thinking _hanging and wiving go by destiny_ thinking _mother_ , and spits in his face, as forcefully as she knows how.

“You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid,” he pleads, and when Portia looks to her, arm in arm with her new lord, Nerissa shakes her head.

“Leave,” says the lady of Belmont, voice like the crack of a whip, and Gratiano is gone.

 

 

 

“We shall live as maids and widows,” says Portia to her new lord, and Nerissa could have laughed aloud, takes pride in thinking: something is going to happen, and I am the only one who knows, and there is nothing you can do about it, because you will be in Venice, and you have never known her as I do.

_None of them have known her as I do._

 

 

 

Portia’s grand idea turns out to be better than Nerissa could have _dreamed_.

She explains it as Nerissa dresses her in her chambers, in a set of clothes neither of them know how to wear, doublet and breeches and hose that outline the fine muscles of Portia’s legs, a hat that throws her face into shadow, leaving only a pair of eyes, glittering dark and green and almost savage in their triumph. (Well—maybe Portia does know how to wear them, after all. Born for it, perhaps, like Joan of Arc, came out of the womb wailing for victory in a man’s shoes.)

Portia watches Nerissa as she dresses herself, quickly and with far less ceremony. The clothes don’t fit her; they feel heavy, like a shell, or a suit of armor.

“I shall speak of frays, how honorable ladies sought my love—and, lacking me, grew sick and died—” Continuing, her movements are brave and brash like a man’s, her shoulders firm beneath the fabric Nerissa has adorned her with, and, “i have within my mind a thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, which I will _practice_ ,” her eyes wander to Nerissa’s, and in that moment there is nothing she wants more than this, wants Portia’s body, her heart, her love, wants to be the sole truth of a woman who lies like the devil, only _better_.

“Why, then, shall we turn to men?” hazards Nerissa, her breath catching in her throat, and Portia can surely tell, can _smell_ the excitement on her, can read faces and bodies like no man ever could. _Turn to women_ , she wants her to say, but—

“Fie, what a question’s that.” It’s not a question. Portia is smiling, curiously, like a cat that has got its prey. “If thou wert near a lewd interpreter.”

“If lewdness is your wish, my lady—”

“It is not.” Portia turns away, but Nerissa can see an odd, achingly familiar twinkle in her eye that sends shivers down her backbone. “Come. I’ll tell thee all my whole device when we are in my coach, which stays for us at the park gate. Haste away.”

They haste.

 

 

 

The coach driver is well paid, and behind his back Portia pins her down on the hard wooden seat, kisses her until they both are gasping for air, deepens her voice, would roughen her face if she could, but Nerissa likes it, likes everything about it, likes the smoothness of her skin and the wetness between her legs and _oh_ , when she is brave enough she takes Portia’s shoulders and straddles her waist like she would a husband, but this—this is _nothing like a husband_.

“I might be wived,” concedes Nerissa, panting, as Portia moves her hips to slide underneath her, agile as a boy, “If thou wert doing the wiving—”

Portia’s head comes up, hair mussed, and Nerissa is afraid, for a moment, that she’s crossed a line, said something that cannot be taken back, but Portia smiles, says, “I am better than the hangman’s noose, is that all your praise for me?”

“ _No_ , lady.” Portia moves to resume her task, and then, quieter, “I cannot praise thee as thy Lord Bassanio would, but believe me—”

Portia’s hands are lifting the hem of her skirt, brushing her thighs, and by now she’s forgotten what to say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By unspoken agreement, they do not speak of what happened in the courtroom that day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On their way home in the carriage, Nerissa blurts out, “Hamlet isn’t a prince.”

“A princess?” says Portia, unfazed, and Nerissa swats at her. “You _knew_!”

“Yes.” The smugness in the air is _palpable._ “I know everything, Nerissa.”

“Not everything.”

“No?”

“She’s not a princess. She’s the daughter of a—courtier, or some such. Her name is Ophelia.”

“Ophelia,” repeats Portia, and Nerissa can tell she likes it. “I must make her acquaintance, someday.”

 

 

 

 

 

She goes to see Ophelia every day that week, feeling Portia’s eyes on her every time she so much as _thinks_ about it—but Ophelia is kind and strong and gentle and wanting, takes her into her bed each night like a drowning man, and Nerissa likes the feather-softness of her, the noises she makes when she comes—and wonders if this is what being in love feels like, if, at one point, this is what Portia felt for Bassanio, and the thought makes her want to run away and never come back.

Instead, she bites down on Ophelia’s lip, hard, wrestles her to the ground until they’re both breathless with laughter, and asks for her hand in marriage.

“Tis not the custom for a woman to wed a woman,” teases Ophelia, with a minimal amount of fish-gaping this time—but her cheeks are pink and her doublet is halfway off and she’s smiling, and oh, Nerissa wants to kiss her. She does, and Ophelia kisses back, and when they part Ophelia says, “Your lady will not mind?”

“Which part of it?” says Nerissa, and sobers. “She thinks you’re a prince. That, she will not mind.”

“When she finds out I am a woman.”

“She knows already.” 

“She knows? She doesn’t _mind_?”

“Our lady is rather . . . unusual, in that way.” Nerissa leans in for another kiss, but Ophelia cuts her off. “ _Our_ lady?”

“Our lady,” Nerissa confirms, and takes a moment to enjoy the scandalized grin that spreads across Ophelia’s face.

 

 

 


End file.
